On the road to nowhere

Lawmakers, it's all about reform

The Illinois State Capitol Building in Springfield on Oct. 24, 2011. (E. Jason Wambsgans)

When lawmakers approved a Capitol Building makeover several years ago, they should have included one modern amenity: a debt ticker.

Perhaps a scrolling, neon ribbon in the House and Senate galleries displaying the state's growing pension debt would snap lawmakers into action.

They adjourned again on Friday, again without fixing the state's massive pension problem. Your tab, taxpayers? You paid their salaries, of course. And over the last three weeks you've racked up another $350 million or so in unfunded pension liability — including two weeks the lawmakers spent on spring break.

Now fix the pension problem. This can't be tossed into the usual end-of-session blender. That creates too much risk of failure. This problem requires immediate attention.

Quinn's office estimates the unfunded liability of the state's five pension funds grows by $17 million a day. The debt for taxpayers grows deeper with every day of inaction. A dangerous sign: Coalitions loosely built around pension reform appear to be fraying.

Consider:

The Senate sputtered last month, passing only a weak pension bill while shooting down a bill sponsored by Sen. Daniel Biss, D-Evanston, that offered the best, most realistic chance of stabilizing the system.

In the House, divisions appeared in the Republican caucus. State Reps. Tom Morrison, R-Palatine, and Jeanne Ives, R-Wheaton, introduced a pension bill that would shift government workers into 401(k)-style plans and freeze the state's defined benefit program going forward.

It's a laudable idea advanced by the Illinois Policy Institute, a right-leaning think tank. The sponsors say it would cut almost in half the state's $96.8 billion unfunded liability in the next fiscal year and save roughly $2 billion in spending.

But the two sponsors are waiting for ... a third sponsor. They have garnered scant support, and they have created the risk that lawmakers will use this bill as an excuse to peel off of the consensus slowly building for the package proposed by Biss, Rep. Elaine Nekritz, D-Northbrook, and House Minority Leader Tom Cross, R-Oswego.

Remember your Voltaire: Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

There are no perfect bills, of course. But there are some good bills. There are some bills that have a reasonable chance of passing the Legislature and a reasonable chance of trimming the pension burden and a reasonable chance of gaining approval of the courts. In the other editorial on this page, we discuss that last point: What's constitutional?